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A&S in the News- June 18-24

Posted on: June 24th, 2016

UA professor’s film earns awardTuscaloosa News – June 20
“Service to Man,” University of Alabama theatre professor Seth Panitch’s first feature-length, earned the grand jury prize for best film Sunday at the 20th American Black Film Festival in Miami. The film was one of 25 selected to be showcased at the festival, which is the largest of its kind in the country. The festival is dedicated to bringing awareness of entertainment content made by and about people of African descent to a worldwide audience, according to its website.

Longtime University of Alabama music teacher diesTuscaloosa News – June 20
If the matriarch of the Penicks on Windsor Drive wasn’t putting the living-room piano through its paces, chances are one of the daughters, Mollie or Drew, was at work on the keyboard. “I would be practicing my pieces, and Mama would be vacuuming, and she would yell from the other side of the house: ‘E flat! E flat!,’ ” said Drew Baker. “She knew exactly what note was wrong; she could hear it from there.” Amanda Ward Penick possessed not just the ears, but the talent, drive and charm to lead generations of pianists and piano teachers to their greatest heights. From shortly after earning her master’s at the University of Alabama in 1952, she taught in UA’s School of Music for 61 years, the longest tenured faculty member not just at UA, but in the state of Alabama.

Romancing the Academic: Catherine M. Roach describes the joy of falling in love with a whole new field of inquiry and style of researchInside Higher Education – June 22
I love my job. I’m sitting in the 38th-floor bar of a swanky Dallas hotel, quaffing champagne and listening to lounge music. The hotel is hosting the annual national conference of the Romance Writers of America. This organization of 10,000 members — almost all of them women — is the professional association devoted to the best-selling genre of popular romance fiction. After a long day of interviews, workshops and keynote addresses, I’m eating a late solo supper. The waiter sets before me a perfect plate of calamari and a Texas merlot so dark purple it’s almost black, served in the biggest glass I’ve ever held. I’m a happy woman, although I alternate between self-satisfied pleasure and self-conscious doubt. Coincidentally, the International Women’s Peace Conference is meeting in the same hotel as Romance Writers of America. When I checked in for the romance conference, I caught sight of one of my former professors from Harvard in the lobby. She wore the name tag of the peace conference, and I found myself ducking. Catherine M. Roach is professor of New College and affiliated faculty in the Department of Gender and Race Studies at the University of Alabama. She is the author, most recently, ofHappily Ever After: The Romance Story in Popular Culture. She writes romance fiction as Catherine LaRoche.

UA alum reads to childrenWVUA 23 (Tuscaloosa) – June 23
One UA alum is back in Tuscaloosa and inspiring children with her new book. Marcia Mouron returned to the Capstone today to read to children at The Child Development Center. This is Mouron’s first book, and it’s all about trying and doing new things. Her inspiration for the book came from a longtime friend who pushed her to start a new project and execute it within three months. Mouron said the concept came to her immediately. You can find Marcia’s book, “You Can, I Can,” at select bookstores in the Birmingham area.